All posts tagged Gus Van Sant

Paige Powell remembers the first time she met the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who would later become her boyfriend. Although “The Andy Warhol Diaries” cites Aug. 9, 1983 as the couple’s first date, for Powell, the enduring impression came earlier.

It was 1981, around the time she saw a show of graffiti artist A-One over at Fashion Moda in the South Bronx. Her boyfriend at the time, Jay Shriver, Warhol’s technical assistant, took her to Basquiat’s loft on Crosby Street.

“We really got on together, so he was always trying to go out with me, and trying to take me to Jamaica and different places,” said Powell, who spoke with Speakeasy by phone from Portland, Ore. “So we would do stuff, but I wasn’t romantically involved with him then because I had a boyfriend, and also he was doing drugs. But then he got himself cleaned up.”

Over the years at Interview magazine and inside Warhol’s Factory, Powell—armed with a camera—amassed an archive of that inner circle of artists. Read More »

The new movie “Promised Land,” which Matt Damon co-wrote and co-produced, came in under budget and ahead of schedule because it had a script, the actor and Oscar-winning screenwriter said Tuesday night in New York. The talk was distributed on the Internet through Livestream.

Damon, who discussed the film along with co-star and co-producer John Krasinski of the NBC sitcom “The Office” and director Gus Van Sant, contrasted that to his last Jason Bourne movie, which he said they were writing day to day while they were shooting it. “It took years off our lives. It was so much pressure because you’re so aware of how much money … once you get on set, the money is just burning.”

He added, “(Director) Paul Greengrass and I would say like we’re in the wrong country. … It was 4 in the morning and we’re on a street and I’m going, Is there anything else we can shoot in Spain?” Read More »

James Franco has collaborated with director Gus Van Sant to rework his classic 1991 film “My Own Private Idaho” for an upcoming exhibit at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. “Endless Idaho” uses outtakes, deleted scenes and the film itself to make a 12-hour version of the movie that stars River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. The other work, “My Own Private River,” focuses on the character Phoenix played. The show, which also includes art by Van Sant, opens this Saturday, a day before Franco’s turn as co-host of the Oscars. Read More »

Will “Restless” be greater or less than the sum of its impressive parts? In general, Speakeasy likes Gus Van Sant (“Good Will Hunting,” “Milk”), and Mia Wasikowska scored a hit with the 3-D “Alice in Wonderland” and Oscar bait with “The Kids Are All Right.” Wasikowska stars in “Restless” and Van Sant directs.

“Restless,” with its themes of romance and the supernatural seems intriguing in a “The Sixth Sense” meets “Twilight” kind of of way, but did we already pass on this when we decided to skip the critically-bashed Zac Efron flick “Charlie St. Cloud”? We’ll have to consult our invisible buddy Donovan before we buy tickets to this one.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.